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POWDER SPRINGS - While some people look at the hostility and death in the Darfur region of western Sudan in Africa and shake their heads, a group of students at Hillgrove High School in Powder Springs are standing up for justice.

Nine members of the school's STAND chapter, a Student Anti-Genocide Coalition club, participated at the "Justice for Darfur" rally Sunday at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta near the Capitol that was hosted by the Atlanta-based Darfur Urgent Action Coalition of Georgia.

David Willner, 18, is president of STAND at Hillgrove and said the event, attended by nearly 300 people, was an amazing experience. He said the violence in Sudan strikes a nerve in him because of his family's experience in the Holocaust.

"I see it as the worst crime in the world because it encompasses so much," said the high school senior, noting the murder, rape, disease and starvation that have reportedly been taking place in Darfur.

"Genocide is something we can stop."

Today, Willner said he expects that legislation sponsored by state Sens. David Adelman (D-Atlanta) and David Shafter (R-Duluth) will be introduced in the General Assembly that calls for Georgia to divest any funds, pension or otherwise, that may be invested in companies doing business with the Sudanese government.

He said a number of groups have been working with the senators to introduce the bill. Twenty-two other states have adopted similar measures, said Willner.

"Some of these foreign companies that Georgia is invested in may be doing business with the Sudanese government," he said.

As many as 400,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced since 2003, according to the national STAND Web site. The government of Sudan, unhappy with uprisings by rebel groups in Darfur, began sponsoring attacks on black Africans by local Arab militias called Janjaweed in February 2003.

Among those who spoke at the rally were two Sudanese refugees, Mohamed Yahya and Basmat Ahmed, who gave accounts of their personal tragedies, said Willner. He said both said they have had members of their families killed as a result of the genocide.

Rebecca Reuland, a Hillgrove freshman and STAND member, said she was moved by what she heard at the rally.

"Everyone deserves a right to live," she said. "No one deserves to be killed just because of the way that they look or because of their religion."

The 14-year-old said she first became interested in what was going on in Darfur when she saw a disturbing picture about a year ago.

"It was a kid lying on the ground and he had been shot. And there was blood everywhere," she remembered. "How can people just do that to these people?"

Willner, who hopes to study either political science or international affairs in college, said he is hopeful that the divestment bill being introduced will become law. He also said he believes the world can end the genocide in Darfur if it wants to.

"It takes political will and enough people to care about it," said Willner.

mhoward@mdjonline.com

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